(Nepali folktale)
Inside a thick grove in a dense forest on the foot of the Himalayas, there lived a ferocious lion. The mad and rapacious killer that he was, he struck terror in the heart of every animal and living being around. But none could dare do anything about it.
A needle also lived in one fringe of the forest. As the lion’s wild rampage rendered the forest almost devoid of most animals, it thought something must be done to do away with the abhorrent beast. As it was planning out a strategy to kill the lion it came across a Hammer, and sought the latter’s cooperation in its project, to which the other readily agreed.
The two proceeded along and were joined by cow-dung the slippery, who, they considered, could come in handy in bringing their scheme to a success. When the three sat together to hatch the plan and equip themselves for the task, Cow-dung suggested that they should also enlist the cooperation of the Wasp and Adder. All of them agreed and set forth in search of the latter. It was with some difficulty that they could convince the Wasp and enlist its cooperation, but the Adder didn’t take much fuss about it, and, in fact volunteered that he would lead the onslaught.
When they reached the lion’s den, they found it empty, for the King of the forest had gone out in search of prey. That, they thought, was a welcome opportunity to lay an ambush, which they did. First, the Adder advised the Needle to thrust itself in the lion’s sleeping berth and stand erect, its sharper tip facing skywards. Next, the Wasp was made to take his position on the mirror, while the Hammer hid himself behind the door. The Adder, in its turn, coiled itself around the base of the lamp.
As the lion entered the den late in the evening after he had helped to a sumptuous dinner elsewhere, he went straight to bed without even bothering to light the lamp. In the enveloping darkness he scarcely noticed the Needle and lowered his heavy frame right on the top of it, which pierced like a lancet into his loins giving him an excruciating pain. He jumped up from the bed, went close to the lamp in order to light it and examine what had bayoneted him, but hardly had he bent low to light the lamp when the Adder sprang another painful surprise by biting him right on the nose, and slithering away before the lamp could be lit. Mad with pain and a bleeding nose, the lion went to the mirror only to get his eyes stung by the Wasp. The lion could bear the combined pain of his three injuries no longer and rushed out into the open. But before he could cross the threshold, the Hammer fell upon him with its full might, almost smashing his head.
Even the Hammer’s blow, however, didn’t have the desired effect, for the lion ran from there. But then the slippery Cow-dung now had its last laugh, for, he ran, the lion’s legs slipped on the cow-dung and he fell. It was then that the Hammer really battered him again and again…and again.
That ultimately did it. As the lion lay dead, however, none of the Needle’s grateful compatriots could extricate it from the lion’s already stiffened hide. At last they left paying their homage to the Needle that had martyred itself while fulfilling a pledge and, by sacrificing itself, had rid the jungle of a rogue.
[Collection: Nagendra Sharma]